Groundwater Ecosystem Health under Anthropogenic Pressure: Integrative Approaches for Assessment, Monitoring, and Restoration

Groundwater ecosystems are among the most extensive, yet least visible and least understood, components of global freshwater systems. Traditionally considered mainly as strategic reservoirs for water supply, aquifers are increasingly recognized as dynamic ecological systems that host diverse microbial and faunal communities, regulate biogeochemical processes, sustain freshwater resources, and contribute to the resilience of freshwater landscapes. Despite their ecological significance, groundwater ecosystems remain insufficiently represented in monitoring programs, conservation frameworks, and water management policies.

Growing anthropogenic pressures are now profoundly altering the structure and functioning of groundwater ecosystems. Intensive groundwater abstraction, agricultural and industrial contamination, urban expansion, land-use change, hydrological regulation, mining activities, emerging pollutants, and climate-driven changes in recharge and flow regimes are reshaping subsurface habitats across multiple spatial and temporal scales. These pressures may affect groundwater biodiversity, ecological connectivity, trophic interactions, water quality, ecosystem services, and the long-term sustainability of aquifer systems. Understanding the resistance, resilience, and recovery capacity of groundwater ecosystems under multiple interacting stressors is increasingly important for developing effective conservation and management strategies.

This Research Topic invites original research and review papers addressing the assessment, monitoring, protection, restoration, and conservation of groundwater ecosystems under anthropogenic pressure. We particularly welcome contributions that integrate hydrogeology, freshwater ecology, microbiology, hydrochemistry, ecotoxicology, molecular biology, environmental modelling, conservation science, and water resources management.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, groundwater biodiversity and stygobiotic communities; microbial indicators and functional diversity; ecological and hydrochemical assessment of aquifer systems; groundwater–surface water interactions; groundwater-dependent ecosystems; impacts of contaminants, nutrients, pesticides, heavy metals, organic pollutants, microplastics, and emerging substances; environmental DNA, metabarcoding, and omics-based approaches; ecological indicators and biomonitoring tools; aquifer vulnerability and risk assessment; ecosystem services of groundwater systems; nature-based and restoration-oriented solutions; and policy-relevant frameworks for sustainable groundwater governance.

Particular emphasis is placed on studies employing integrative, interdisciplinary, and multi-scale approaches to evaluate groundwater ecosystems beyond conventional physicochemical assessment. Contributions combining field monitoring, laboratory experiments, ecological metrics, molecular tools, numerical modelling, geospatial analysis, artificial intelligence, or decision-support frameworks are especially encouraged. Studies that bridge scientific understanding with management, policy, stakeholder engagement, and conservation decision-making are particularly welcome.

This Research Topic aims to advance scientific understanding of groundwater ecosystems as living, vulnerable, and functionally significant components of freshwater landscapes. By bringing together diverse methodological and disciplinary perspectives, it will support the development of robust indicators, improved monitoring strategies, restoration approaches, and adaptive management tools for safeguarding groundwater ecosystem integrity in an era of increasing anthropogenic change.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Groundwater, Ecosystems, Stygobionts, Aquifer, Anthropogenic, Human, Impacts, Biomonitoring, Environmental, eDNA, Contamination, Subsurface, Ecology

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.